How far would Saddam have to go beforeyou would support the US lead war to oust him? What would he have to do for you to support the war?

If he invaded a neighboring nation would you want him gone? If fired scud missiles loaded with nerve gas on Israel and Saudi Arabia would you want him gone? If he handed off weapons of MD to terrorists who used them to destroy and American city would you want him gone?

What would he have to do for you to support attacking him?

How paranoid and violent would you have to be before someone renders you harmless?

A war and occupation are unnecessary to isolate, defang, and even oust Saddam.

What are you suggesting? That we just wait until he has been assasinated? That is a wonderful option. I wish all of our problems were that easy to solve. Exactly what makes you think some one will take him out?

Eddie monkey,
He already invaded Kuwait. He already fired SCUD missiles at Israel, albeit sans nerve gas.
" A war and occupation are unnecessary to isolate, defang, and even oust Saddam."
How exactly could we do this? Remember that France and Germany are dangerously intertwined with Iraq. They heavily depend on Iraq for oil. France also supplied Iraq w/nuclear power technology.

The US government has done things far worse than anything Saddam ever has or could ever do.

"What are you suggesting? That we just wait until he has been assasinated? That is a wonderful option. I wish all of our problems were that easy to solve."

Shadows if you were President I would sleep much easier. Yes, a lot of our problems truly are easy to solve. A lot of these threads are also running fairly parallel. I commented along the lines of this idea in WE&P>How can we stop this silly war? (http://www.sciforums.com/showthread.php?s=&postid=282377#post282377) , 3/08 stroke of midnight. Time for bed.

Peas.

jps, I'll agree that the US gov. has done some pretty egregious things, but I do not recall the US invading a NATO member unprovoked or gassing and otherwise killing tens of thousands of it's own citizens.

yes but that takes congress to repeal the anti assasination act. Who says they have to know about it? I hope you didn't mean that cause being pres. is really the suckiest job in the world as you got a million wise asses cracking shit about you and what you have been doing since you have been elected.

Maybe this kind of thinking doesn't work in the real world, but I think if one country attacks another, then the country that was attacked should retaliate. I'm an isolationist. Yes I realise that that can lead to one country taking over a massive amount of territory, and possibly even the world (such as Germany during Hitler) but the world is a very hard thing to rule, there are far too many people to revolt.
THat's my thinking, if Iraq attacked Israel, then Israel should attack Iraq. If Iraq attacks the US, then the US should attack Iraq. If the US attacks Iraq first, then Iraq has every right to attack the US.
But I would also like to see wars fought the way they were pre world wars. No civillian involvement. Two armies go and fight eachother in some remote field/desert.
I would also like to see the full disarmament of every country in the world. Hard to fight without weapons. And yes I realise that weapons would just be built up again, but a girl can dream, can't she??

Well lets see...
I supose if Saddam attacked four other countries, comited genocide and ignored 17 or so UN resolutions, that would be enough reason for me.

Originally posted by immane1
but I do not recall the US invading a NATO member unprovoked or gassing and otherwise killing tens of thousands of it's own citizens.

Nope but they are pretty good at bullying and threatning them ^_^.
As for gassing its own citizens..they call it capital punishment don't they?

Saddam's salad days are done, so long as we deny him the war he craves. He is contained, under scrutiny, losing clout, and becoming vulnerable to his own people.

meaning that he will keep tightening his grip of terror over his people. More people will die that way than would die if we just invaded. Your rright his salad days are over but a whole generation of iraqis will precieve our inaction as not caring about them. They only way this won't play into ben ladin's hands is if we do a good job in iraq. Like keeping war causualties down, rebuilding the country so that it is stable, creating a voluntary national iraqi army made up of all iraqis to combat separatism in the north and south. When I say all iraqis I mean that all ethnic groups would have the option to participate.

WHAT'S SO IMPORTANT ABOUT SADDAM ANYWAY?

We have no problems sleeping or eat less while in some countries in africa genocide and even cannibalism is a common ritual....

why don't the USA (being the conscious of the world) invades those countries "on behalve of the U.N" to "restore peace and prosperty"????

Frankly, most of us don't give a shit what happens in some far away tribal clash, so what makes this jewish-palestine clash and saddam hussein so important???

Is it because of the oil or is it zionist media MAKING it our bussiness OR ...?

That's the third thing I would do if it was my choice.

The US government has done things far worse than anything Saddam ever has or could ever do.

jps, what are you talking about?

Saddam Kills Missle Chief to hide weapons (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/02/wirq102.xml)

Iraq's Crime of Genocide (http://hrw.org/reports/world/iraq-pubs.php)

Saddam Has "Professinal Rapists" (http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3007499&thesection=news&thesubsection=world)

Man is arrested for 14 years (For selling a roll of film) (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-590350,00.html)

Saddam & Torture (http://www.thisislondon.com/news/articles/2283602?source=Evening%20Standard)

Liberal MP backs war after meeting Saddam's Torture victums (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,635-592766,00.html)

Saddam kills some more people (Hey! He ain't that bad) (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2002%2F08%2F25%2Fwnidal25 .xml)

Systimatic Torture of Political Prisoners (http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/print/MDE140082001?OpenDocument)

New York Times: How many people has Saddam killed? (You have to register, which is free, to read the article) (http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/26/weekinreview/26JOHN.html&OQ=exQ3D1044248400Q26enQ3D1aec64f892889c31Q26eiQ3D 5062Q26partnerQ3DGOOGLE)

Yeah, your right. He ain't that bad.:rolleyes:

That we just wait until he has been assasinated? That is a wonderful option. I wish all of our problems were that easy to solveWell, during the Clinton administration, Congress authorized $97 million to assist the Iraqi people in ousting Saddam Hussein. The largest number I've seen suggests we've spent $3 million of that money. We could do more; Congress even said we don't have to wait.

And as to Saddam's atrocities--why were they acceptable when we were helping finance his war against Iran?

Nobody denies his atrocities.

But in the United States, we've long stood for ourselves in the sense that yes, he does have to pop us in the mouth before we actually go after him. Liberating Kuwait was all well and fine, but the reasons Poppy Bush didn't go to Baghdad are the reasons Dubya pushes the Bush Doctrine. It's a massive paradigm shift in American foreign policy.

The world is simply hesitant to endorse the New America. I understand; so am I. We'll be making the world more dangerous while pretending to make it safer.

This is not your father's Bush.

Or his.

:m:,
Tiassa :cool:

coffee
rethink that conservative label.

;)

Originally posted by eddie monkey

If he invaded a neighboring nation would you want him gone?

what does that nation want us to do? have they requested help?

If fired scud missiles loaded with nerve gas on Israel and Saudi Arabia would you want him gone?

what does saudi arabia and israel want us to do?

If he handed off weapons of MD to terrorists who used them to destroy and American city would you want him gone?

kill him

What would he have to do for you to support attacking him?

attack me

You're right, Counsler, he's a nasty guy. I was surprised you are upset with Saddam's elimination (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2002%2F08%2F25%2Fwnidal25 .xml) of Abu Nidal (http://www.terrorismanswers.com/groups/abunidal.html) as part of Saddam's being brought to heel by the international community (now that's what I call disarmament). I considered that a positive development.

While you are on this humanitarian investigation, you might want to point out other countries the US should attack and occupy: (ignoring much of the world here, let's just look around the region) Saudi Arabia (http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/saudi+arabia?OpenView&Start=1&Count=30&Expandall), Pakistan (http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/pakistan?OpenView&Start=1&Count=30&Expandall), Israel (http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/israel/occupied+territories?OpenView&Start=1&Count=30&Expandall), and Afghanistan (http://web.amnesty.org/ai.nsf/countries/afghanistan?OpenView&Start=1&Count=30&Expandall)(the job's not done there).

Originally posted by eddie monkey
If he invaded a neighboring nation would you want him gone?

The whole dispute started because Kuwait was slant-drilling. Using equipment bought from National Security Council chief Brent Scowcroft's old company, Kuwait was pumping out some $14-billion worth of oil from underneath Iraqi territory. Even the territory they were drilling from had originally been Iraq's. Slant-drilling is enough to get you shot in Texas, and it's certainly enough to start a war in the Mideast.
Even so, this dispute could have been negotiated. But it's hard to avoid a war when what you're actually doing is trying to provoke a war.

what would you do?????

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/CIA%20Hits/Iraq_CIAHits.html

stealing again in 2000 (http://www.rense.com/general3/slant.htm)

Originally posted by eddie monkey
If he handed off weapons of MD to terrorists who used them to destroy and American city would you want him gone?

Powell's argument rests entirely on one man: Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian-born Palestinian who moved from Afghanistan to Kurdistan in northern Iraq after the fall of the Taliban. Consider what Powell said about Al-Zarqawi:

http://www.truthaboutwar.org/claim2.shtml

Originally posted by eddie monkey
How far would Saddam have to go before you would support the US-led war to oust him? What would he have to do for you to support the war?As there seems to be a modest level of genuine interest in libertarian philosophy on this forum, I will give a libertarian's answer to the question.

If you're wondering what the small "l" libertarian philosophy or the capital "L" Libertarian Party is all about, one of you summarizes it pretty succinctly in your signature line: Adults should be allowed to do whatever they want so long as they cause no direct harm to others. Whoever you are, forgive me for not quoting you exactly.

Libertarians therefore believe that the role of government is small. Basically what's set forth in the Constitution, particularly the Bill of Rights. The accretions of the past seventy years such as the complete takeover of the education, charity, energy, finance, transportation, and other sectors are unconstitutional and should simply be met with mass civil disobedience and the recall of all politicians who refuse to abolish them.

The government is empowered to protect us from those who would infringe on our rights by the initiation of violence. Either internal (therefore a police force) or external (therefore a defense force).

However, individual citizens have the right to travel outside the country and, AS INDIVIDUALS, NOT REPRESENTATIVES OF THE PEOPLE OR GOVERNMENT OF THE U.S.A., to act in any way they see fit.

So let's use these rules to derive answers to the questions posed.

If he invaded a neighboring nation would you want him gone?Life in that part of the world is nothing like it is here. People live by far different rules, and to a surprisingly large extent they do so voluntarily or at least passively. Feuds go on for generations, for centuries. The reasons are often unfathomable to us, and indeed just as often to them. As a NATION we do not have the right to tell people who are not bound by our Constitution how to live their lives. To the extent that many of the conflicts in the region derive from religious disagreements, we are not in a position to impose parameters on their conduct, even such seemingly "reasonable" ones as "thou shalt not kill." The religions founded in the Mideast have been major causes of wars and insurrections of horrifying scope for millennia, reaching as far as Ireland and the Phillipines. The U.S. government must remain NEUTRAL in any conflict between other nations.

Any U.S. citizens who feel a personal, moral responsibility to travel to these lands and enlist in their armed forces, fight as mercenaries or privateers, or strive to stop the fighting, are free to do so, but they must not pose as representatives of this nation.

If you're asking me personally whether I would wish to see Iraq prevented from invading its neighbors, that would depend on which country and how much bloodshed was involved. By the standards of the Mideast, the Baathist regime is secular. The women of most Arab nations would arguably have more freedom under its flag.

If Saddam fired scud missiles loaded with nerve gas on Israel and Saudi Arabia would you want him gone?Israel owes the U.S. about fifty years' worth of favors. Their military has proven itself quite capable. I would allow them to settle their own scores, secure in the conviction that doing so would not bring about their downfall. Since the 9-11 operation was masterminded by an in-law of the Saudi royal family (Osama), bankrolled by Saudi money, and effected predominantly by Saudi hijackers, and since furthermore the Saudi government is generally recognized as one of the world's most corrupt and despotic, I feel a singular lack of compassion for Saudi Arabia as a state. If American warriors would like to go there AS INDIVIDUALS for the purpose of minimizing the bloodshed by reducing the Saudi military's ability to fight back, I would understand their motivation and would not hold them in contempt upon their return to our shores.

If he handed off weapons of MD to terrorists who used them to destroy an American city would you want him gone?Absolutely. That's what we have a government for. It would be a constitutionally proper deployment of our military forces. However, more importantly, if our government allowed the situation to reach the point that an American city were actually attacked -- for example by being so inept that they failed to increase the number of intelligence agents able to read Arabic and other Mideastern languages, so that to this day we still don't know whether a computer printed plan laid out in Microsoft Project for 9-11 in Farsi or Pashto is lying at the bottom of some bureaucrat's "in" basket awaiting translation -- I would call for the resignation of the entire federal government. If the government not only refused to resign but escalated the conflict by taking actions that were unconstitutional and that resulted in other nations or their citizens continuing to attack us in a crazy dance of mutual self-defense by mutual destruction, I would follow the example that most of our ancestors set by coming here, and try to find somewhere better to live.

What would Saddam have to do for you to support attacking him?As I said in the previous section, for a disorganized, poorly armed, strife-ridden, friendless little shit-hole of a country like Iraq, which is NOT Nazi Germany, the USSR, China, or even Saudi Arabia, to successfully attack an American city would be evidence of the complete failure of our own government to fulfill its primary mission. I would recommend devoting considerable resources to overhauling said government. But I would also recommend responding to an act of war with an act of war. A surgical strike to take out Saddam, while carefully avoiding striking fear into the hearts of the world's other two billion Muslims that Christendom was resuming the Crusades and prompting World War III in response, would be in order. The realities of the past fifty years cannot be ignored, and the best approach might be to call in that favor from Israel, whose armed forces are renowned for their skill at such delicate operations.

I'm mostly with you Fraggle, you have cut through a lot of BS in an excellent post. But you could only find one country with less moral authority in the Middle East than the US. If you are saying the Mossad should take out Saddam surgically, I'm almost completely in agreement- almost as good as Iraqis doing it. Israel owes America that and so much more (although I would prefer we demand an end to the destruction of Palestine, if we must call in Israel's debts).

But due to US and Israeli squandering of their own credibilities, they can never individually or cooperatively establish a stable new Middle Eastern order. Either of the two are one and the same in the eyes of millions of Arabs, as I think you know. Any American-Israeli military venture on a dramatic regional scale will unite the Arab world sufficiently in indignance to insure complete and overcompensating rejection. Are we to sacrifice Israel as we have the Kurds and others for our own selfish interests? I think the United States must face the injustices and mistakes of the past responsibly, if only for her own security.

Originally posted by CounslerCoffee
jps, what are you talking about?



Yeah, your right. He ain't that bad.:rolleyes:

I never said he wasn't all that bad. I just said the US has done far worse things.
Read, William Blum's "Killing Hope" if you doubt this.

Hussein’s gone far enough for me just being a dictator. But I wouldn’t support an attack unless a legitimate democracy was installed in his place. I don’t have faith in Bush to do that, or to do it satisfactorily. He certainly hasn’t done anything of note for Americans other than his buddies.

BTW, why call him Saddam like Bush does? Do you call all leaders by their first names?

heyya all :)

bush has potentialy commited a war crime by massing troops on the boarder....
the U.N backed off when they obviousely needed to try and construct a democracey....

there must be a thousand arguments for all sides
except peace....

how sad!
look how they all teach there children!!!


we must seek peace for the sake of the children...
how can u justify baring children when you are planning to send thier parents to be killed in war???

what do you think you create???

just another biggoted gun slinger!

peace IS the only way ahead!

peace light truth love
the path to that we hold above.

BTW, why call him Saddam like Bush does? Do you call all leaders by their first names?

not trynna spark a stupid debate about this, but wat diff does it make? is there an etiquette that is being violated here? maybe cuz hussein is a fairly common last name/first name and it would be confusing... i donno.. just takin a stab at it...

Arabs often call him simply "Saddam" in conversation. Not to say you would want to walk up to him on your own and say wassup, Saddam- but an adoring crowd chanting "Our blood for Saddam" is fine by him. It is common for leaders, especially in tribal culture to be referred to by their first name, usually with a title, Shayhk Abdullah, Malik Hussein, etc.

Originally posted by eddie monkey
How far would Saddam have to go beforeyou would support the US lead war to oust him? What would he have to do for you to support the war?

Abdication of Sadam Hussein would be argument for attack.

originally posted by hypewaders
I would prefer we demand an end to the destruction of Palestine, if we must call in Israel's debts.As INDIVIDUALS, absolutely. As an average American with diverse ethnic roots, I have enough personal insight into the American Jewish community to be certain that a good chunk of it, if not an outright majority, would concur. Write letters, send money, take your friends over there and get in the face of the Orthodox minority that dictates Israeli policy on everything. Still I stick by my libertarian (rarely drawn) guns: the U.S. as a NATION has no business meddling in the affairs of other sovereign nations. Which means we shoud stop arming Israel, as well as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, India and many other countries in the region that should not be encouraged by Uncle Sam to maintain a high military profile. I feel sorrow for the majority of good-hearted Palestinians (and I personally know quite a few, L.A. is a true Melting Pot) who condemn the terrorists in their midst, but I see no reason why this should not be a local problem. Look at a map of the Mideast drawn to scale and tell me why the Palestinians should be granted a homeland in that shred of territory so small that the name ISRAEL must be written outside its boundaries with an arrow pointing to it, rather than within the vast empty spaces surrounding the names SYRIA, IRAQ, SAUDI ARABIA, etc.? Countries whose people share the same ancestry, language, culture, and religion as the Palestinians?Any American-Israeli military venture on a dramatic regional scale will unite the Arab world sufficiently in indignance to insure complete and overcompensating rejection.No argument. I only suggested that as a last resort, if the situation got so bad that our own survival depended on removing Saddam from power. Which I do not believe is the case today, as I tried to make clear by calling Iraq a “little shit-hole of a country.” My worst-case preference for a surgical strike is precisely to avoid the "dramatic scale" that scares you. It would demonstrate that our agenda is short and specific, and hopefully provoke the least violent reprisal.Are we to sacrifice Israel as we have the Kurds and others for our own selfish interests? I think the United States must face the injustices and mistakes of the past responsibly, if only for her own security.I would not bet even money on the ability of a coalition of the entire Muslim Mideast (a scenario which in itself is laughably implausible) to destroy Israel. As for the plight of the Kurds, the Iraqi Shias, the Chechen Sufis, the Lebanese Christians, the Muslims in India, the ethnic Turks in Bulgaria, the ethnic Arabs in Afghanistan, ad nauseam: these Levantine and Mideastern conflicts have been going on for a lot longer than the existence of the U.S. or even the European occupation of the Western Hemisphere. I blame U.S. politics for exacerbating many of them, but we are hardly the main cause of any of them. The best thing we can do at this instant is to redefine our military as a defense force and our foreign policy as live-and-let-live, because even the most nobly intended meddling in other people’s business almost invariably turns out badly. If we can establish a reputation as a country that minds its own business and leads by example and commerce rather than by force, it might eventually serve as atonement for the blunders of our parents and grandparents.originally posted by Zanket
Why call him Saddam like Bush does?As others have pointed out, this is no sign of respect, friendship, or even of the ignorance that belies an Ivy League diploma acquired by bribery. There are too many prominent Husseins out there.originally posted by ripleofdeath
Peace light truth love
The path to that we hold above.While the libertarian movement and Party are plagued by its unavoidable appeal to gunslingers, religious wackos, druggies, and anarchists, a good portion of its bedrock supporters are from the old Love-and-Peace generation who have not lost our ideals but simply our naive faith in the power (or even desire) of government to solve social problems. I encourage you to join us.originally posted by Raghar
Abdication of Saddam Hussein would be argument for attack.Huh? There’s gotta be a typo or two in that sentence.

Originally posted by eddie monkey
If he handed off weapons of MD to terrorists who used them to destroy and American city would you want him gone?

WASHINGTON - Senior Bush administration officials are pressuring CIA analysts to tailor their assessments of the Iraqi threat to help build a case against Saddam Hussein, intelligence and congressional sources said.

In what sources described as an escalating "war," top officials at the Pentagon and elsewhere have bombarded CIA analysts with criticism and calls for revisions on such key questions as whether Iraq has ties to the al Qaeda terrorist network, sources said.

The sources stressed that CIA analysts -- who are supposed to be impartial-- are fighting to resist the pressure. But they said analysts are increasingly resentful of what they perceive as efforts to contaminate the intelligence process.

"Analysts feel more politicized and more pushed than many of them can ever remember," said an intelligence official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

http://lists.freelives.ca/pipermail/info4/2002-October/000584.html

The U.S. slide into Vietnam was initially a creature of ignorance laced with hubris, but deliberate deception quickly began to play a central role. In August 1964, President Lyndon Johnson used spurious reports of a North Vietnamese patrol boat attack on a U.S. warship in the Tonkin Gulf to muscle Congress into giving him carte blanche to make war. Does this not have an eerie contemporary ring?

Years later, Johnson's national security adviser, McGeorge Bundy, gave a chilling first-hand account of how Johnson abruptly waved aside Bundy's cautions about the Tonkin Gulf incident and dispatched him like a pageboy to do his bidding on Capitol Hill. All the president's men went along with the deception.

Three years after the Tonkin Gulf resolution, the U.S. commander in Vietnam, Gen. William Westmoreland, falsified Vietnamese Communist troop strength in order to project an image of progress in the war (he knew there were twice as many as he was counting). Had he told the truth, the war could have been stopped before the disastrous Vietnamese Communist Tet offensive in early 1968.

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0104-08.htm

THE DIPLOMAT'S GOODBYE

Washington Post, Sunday, March 9 2003

Editor's note: Letters of resignation, particularly those from State Department diplomats to their superiors, are not ordinarily a forum for disagreements about the course of American foreign policy. The following letter of resignation, written by career diplomat John Brady Kiesling to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, is unusual for its content and length. Kiesling, 45, served in several U.S. embassies before his most recent post in Athens. He shared a 1994 award from the American Foreign Service Association for "constructive dissent" after he and 12 others signed a letter of protest over the lack of U.S. intervention in the conflict in Bosnia.

February 27, 2003
Dear Mr. Secretary:

I am writing you to submit my resignation from the Foreign Service of the United States and from my position as Political Counselor in U.S. Embassy Athens, effective March 7. I do so with a heavy heart.

The baggage of my upbringing included a felt obligation to give something back to my country. Service as a U.S. diplomat was a dream job. I was paid to understand foreign languages and cultures, to seek out diplomats, politicians, scholars and journalists, and to persuade them that U.S. interests and theirs fundamentally coincided. My faith in my country and its values was the most powerful weapon in my diplomatic arsenal.

It is inevitable that during twenty years with the State Department I would become more sophisticated and cynical about the narrow and selfish bureaucratic motives that sometimes shaped our policies. Human nature is what it is, and I was rewarded and promoted for understanding human nature. But until this Administration it had been possible to believe that by upholding the policies of my president I was also upholding the interests of the American people and the world. I believe it no longer.

The policies we are now asked to advance are incompatible not only with American values but also with American interests. Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offense and defense since the days of Woodrow Wilson. We have begun to dismantle the largest and most effective web of international relationships the world has ever known. Our current course will bring instability and danger, not security.

The sacrifice of global interests to domestic politics and to bureaucratic self-interest is nothing new, and it is certainly not a uniquely American problem. Still, we have not seen such systematic distortion of intelligence, such systematic manipulation of American opinion, since the war in Vietnam. The September 11 tragedy left us stronger than before, rallying around us a vast international coalition to cooperate for the first time in a systematic way against the threat of terrorism. But rather than take credit for those successes and build on them, this Administration has chosen to make terrorism a domestic political tool, enlisting a scattered and largely defeated Al Qaeda as its bureaucratic ally. We spread disproportionate terror and confusion in the public mind, arbitrarily linking the unrelated problems of terrorism and Iraq. The result, and perhaps the motive, is to justify a vast misallocation of shrinking public wealth to the military and to weaken the safeguards that protect American citizens from the heavy hand of government. September 11 did not do as much damage to the fabric of American society as we seem determined to do to ourselves. Is the Russia of the late Romanovs really our model, a selfish, superstitious empire thrashing toward self-destruction in the name of a doomed status quo?

We should ask ourselves why we have failed to persuade more of the world that a war with Iraq is necessary. We have over the past two years done too much to assert to our world partners that narrow and mercenary U.S. interests override the cherished values of our partners. Even where our aims were not in question, our consistency is at issue. The model of Afghanistan is little comfort to allies wondering on what basis we plan to rebuild the Middle East, and in whose image and interests. Have we indeed become blind, as Russia is blind in Chechnya, as Israel is blind in the Occupied Territories, to our own advice, that overwhelming military power is not the answer to terrorism? After the shambles of post-war Iraq joins the shambles in Grozny and Ramallah, it will be a brave foreigner who forms ranks with Micronesia to follow where we lead.

We have a coalition still, a good one. The loyalty of many of our friends is impressive, a tribute to American moral capital built up over a century. But our closest allies are persuaded less that war is justified than that it would be perilous to allow the U.S. to drift into complete solipsism. Loyalty should be reciprocal. Why does our President condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach to our friends and allies this Administration is fostering, including among its most senior officials? Has oderint dum metuant really become our motto? [Ed. note: Latin for "Let them hate so long as they fear," thought to be a favorite saying of Caligula.]

I urge you to listen to America's friends around the world. Even here in Greece, purported hotbed of European anti-Americanism, we have more and closer friends than the American newspaper reader can possibly imagine. Even when they complain about American arrogance, Greeks know that the world is a difficult and dangerous place, and they want a strong international system, with the U.S. and EU in close partnership. When our friends are afraid of us rather than for us, it is time to worry. And now they are afraid. Who will tell them convincingly that the United States is as it was, a beacon of liberty, security and justice for the planet?

Mr. Secretary, I have enormous respect for your character and ability. You have preserved more international credibility for us than our policy deserves, and salvaged something positive from the excesses of an ideological and self-serving Administration. But your loyalty to the President goes too far. We are straining beyond its limits an international system we built with such toil and treasure, a web of laws, treaties, organizations and shared values that sets limits on our foes far more effectively than it ever constrained America's ability to defend its interests.

I am resigning because I have tried and failed to reconcile my conscience with my ability to represent the current U.S. Administration. I have confidence that our democratic process is ultimately self-correcting, and hope that in a small way I can contribute from outside to shaping policies that better serve the security and prosperity of the American people and the world we share.

Originally posted by hypewaders
Arabs often call him simply "Saddam" in conversation. ... It is common for leaders, especially in tribal culture to be referred to by their first name, usually with a title, Shayhk Abdullah, Malik Hussein, etc.

Didn't know that. Thanks.

Originally posted by eddie monkey
How far would Saddam have to go beforeyou would support the US lead war to oust him? What would he have to do for you to support the war?

What would he have to do for you to support attacking him?

If he would invade my country, I wouldn't be able to do anything without an army.

Gas my, relatives, familly ect,...I would personally try to kill him,...but I have no weapons and he's well protected,...even locating him is verry hard.

But by all means I am against a war,...there are other ways of dealing with this.

No one needs to resort to outrageous violence. It's just to much, civilians ought not to suffer from this.

Prove to me that he is a danger for American National intrest.